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Westcott Cultural Fair Parade

It has become a tradition for The New School to take part in the Westcott Street Cultural Fair’s parade. This year all the children made hats and will be marching as animals from one of the seven continents! Children randomly selected a continent, and animal and after much research and discussion, they creatively designed their Read More >>

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Simple Machines

Students in grades 5-8 participated in a simple machines unit.  Our class started this unit by defining terms that had to do with simple machines and looking at cartoons drawn by Rube Goldberg to finding simple machines in his silly and complex drawings. During another class we watched a Myth Busters video about pulling out Read More >>

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Water Cycle

In our science class with students in grades 3 and 4, we studied the water cycle. This unit focuses on how water exists in our world and how it transforms from phase to phase.We explored how water exists in nature as a solid, a liquid and a gas. In this unit we have read two books Read More >>

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Butterfly class

In January, we continued our butterfly class. As always it allowed for wonderful conversations on big ideas. One day we began to talk about butterflies, discussing that they don’t stay around to nurture their young. We talked a little about the difference between human, butterflies: learning from our parents or knowing through instinct. But of course, Read More >>

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Electricity

The youngest students have recently begun a unit on electricity.  We follow the same format we used for our Butterfly class.  We meet once a week for 50 minutes.  For the first half hour we read and talk.  For the next 20 minutes we have a studio time where we break up into 4 or Read More >>

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Bats

Our second through fourth graders have recently wrapped up a science unit on bats. In this unit we studied unique qualities and characteristics of specific bat species, compared bats to birds, learned about echolocation, and contributed to bat conservation. Some of our activities allowed students to create replica bat species using exact measurements and physical Read More >>

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Bugsocopters 2018

Students in grades 3 and 4 enjoyed a unit on variables. To help them learn that in order to test a single characteristic in a design, you can only change one variable. Bugsocopters, fun paper twirling designs, came to the rescue. First the students were given a standard Bugsocopter to experiment with. They had to Read More >>

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Seeds Class with Calli

In our seeds class the students were able to examine multiple different types of seeds. They looked at both dry and wet lima and kidney bean seeds. We first examined what the outside looked and felt like then the students were able to cut the seeds open and examine the insides so that they could Read More >>

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Periodic Table

Children in grade 5-8th have participated in a class that has been exploring the periodic table.  We started with thinking about how elements “look”.  We built three different types of models to try and visualize these tiny building blocks.  Our discussion included learning about atomic numbers, electrons, neutrons and protons.            Read More >>

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Lego Class

In past years, our students who are now 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders learned about simple and powered machines using Legos. They investigated structures and forces, levers, and wheels and axles while building models of machines out of Legos. We had two new students in their age group join us at The New School this Read More >>